Tonight on Frontline, two American families, both doing their best to hang on to the American
dream.
But nearly every day is a struggle.
Will they make it?
For the last five years, correspondent Bill Moyers has been documenting their lives, living
on the edge.
Funding for Frontline is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by annual financial
support from viewers like you.
This is Frontline.
The funding is provided by Mutual of America, building America's future through pension
and retirement programs, encouraging dialogue and discussion.
The Spirit of America, Mutual of America.
Good afternoon, Milwaukee.
The evolution of your own work career.
Are you doing what you thought you'd be doing?
What do you think you're going to be doing in the future?
Today, our state stands at the forefront of our nation.
Our state is in a strong position to meet the challenges of this era.
A new survey of the Milwaukee area reflects what many work-a-day employees already know
too well.
Prices keep going up while paychecks stay the same.
Manufacturing jobs in Wisconsin have declined by 2% over the past year, compared with a
3.1% decrease nationally.
Years ago, if you wanted a small engine, you got a Briggs & Stratton.
Slowly but surely, that has changed in the past 10 years.
Foreign manufacturers have carved out a respectable share of the small engine market.
Are you going to call him back?
You want to call him back?
Yeah, I'm going to have to call him.
You've talked to him before.
I told him I don't care if they want to foreclose.
They can foreclose.
If we don't have the money, we don't have the money.
I would prefer you to call him other than me.
Here we go.
In 1991, Terry and Tony Newman were on the verge of losing their home.
They couldn't make their mortgage payments because Tony had lost his good-paying factory
job at Briggs & Stratton.
I did send a thousand dollar check in a few weeks back, but the check was sent back to
me with a letter stating, we will not accept a partial payment.
When I tried to explain that over the phone, somebody called, I don't really think of that
as a partial payment.
I think of that as a basic payment and a good gesture on trying to get caught up.
Right now we're going through a hard time.
My husband's out of work.
He went to school and he's looking for a job.
I'm basically just trying to buy a little time so we can get on our feet again, so we
can get caught up.
I would think that this is just going to be a temporary thing, not a permanent thing,
and I really don't want to lose my house.
Or you're just trying to tell me that you have to foreclose on the house if I don't
have that full amount.
You would recommend it.
Is he putting this on paper?
I want to know, is he putting this on paper?
Dear?
Tony is one of about 50,000 factory workers in Milwaukee, Wisconsin whose lives have been
shaken by an economic earthquake that has changed the American workplace.
Good paying jobs are heading south or out of the country, and workers like Tony Newman
are searching desperately for new jobs that will support their families.
I've applied over at grocery stores, hardware stores, there's parties, Super America, Pizza
Hut, Wal-Mart, Sam's.
They're willing to pay me six dollars, six dollars and a quarter.
Little do they know, I need to live also.
When the doors of Briggs closed on us and they handed us our pink slips, I knew that
I'm out here.
It's sink or swim.
Jackie Stanley also worked at Briggs and Stratton, Milwaukee's largest private employer.
Before her layoff, she was making about $32,000 a year.
Jackie's husband, Claude, was laid off from another large Milwaukee manufacturer.
You got to look out on the real side.
I could not live like I was making $20 an hour.
Okay, that money's not there.
So you might as well get it in your mouth, it's not there no more.
So okay, bring yourself down.
In the early 90s, families like the Stanleys and Neumans were thrown into an emerging new
economy built on light manufacturing and service jobs.
It was a time when unemployment hit record lows.
But many of the new jobs offered only part-time work and no benefits and they paid lower wages.
You figure it out, gas, electric, telephone bill, plus food for a family.
You figure it out, minimum wage will not make it.
Over the last five years, we have followed the Neumans and the Stanleys as they adjust
to the local realities of the new global economy.
We met them in 1991, we came back in 93, and returned in 95.
It freaked me out when mom said, your dad's been laid off, and I was like, no, dad wasn't
laid off.
And I started thinking, you know, at the time I was going to a private school and I'm sitting
there going, please, my dad not laid off.
My dad was laid off, he took this lower paying job, and then mom had the load on her.
Then mom got laid off.
The income just went, soof.
I don't think any other family probably could survive.
Our family is fortunate.
Keith is up under me, he's 14 years old, Claudel and Claude is a set of twins.
They're 11 years old, and my little sister, Omega, is 10.
My father's been laid off for five years.
He went into waterproofing.
When I got laid off, they wanted me to be under welfare, but I could not stand in that
line.
I said, this is not me.
This is not me.
They wanted to give me food.
I said, this ain't me.
I don't want no food now.
I said, I got my strength, my health.
I will find me a job, and I found me a job.
Claude Stanley found a job waterproofing basements.
It paid $6.50 an hour, about a third of what he had been making.
This was practice on him.
My mother, she got a real estate license.
Can I shake your hand?
The reality is that it's rough, and I'm always smiling in spite of electric bills, gas bills,
telephones.
They're due just like anybody else's, but I can't afford to say, you know, I'm having
a rough time.
Please buy this house.
No.
Hi, Joe.
Yeah, this is Jacqueline Stanley from Homestead.
When the Stanleys had factory jobs, they took home over $60,000 between them in a good year,
and that included health benefits.
That security is gone.
Mom's real estate is tough on her.
I've seen her try to will and deal deals.
They seem so good, and at the last minute, they fall apart.
Call me, because we wrote this for, the listing is for September.
That falling apart is our mortgage.
That falling apart is the car notice.
And to someone else, it might not seem important that they decide not to buy the house.
But for us, it's a matter of not life and death, but it's a matter of light and gas.
And that's scary.
When we met Tony in 1991, he believed retraining would give him skills for a better job.
He'd just spent a year in school, getting perfect scores in pneumatics and hydraulics.
But when he finished, there was still no work.
Thank you.
Have a good day.
So he was picking up odd jobs to help support the family.
I've tried doing things.
I work in a garage on woodworking things when I get angry, and that helps once in a while.
It's real frustrating not being able to support my family the way I used to.
It's really frustrating.
The Newman's have three children, Carissa, Adam, and Daniel, who was just about to start
third grade when we met him.
Daniel was doing very well before Tony was laid off.
But with the tensions around the house, he kind of withdrew a little bit.
Children do notice the tension, they do notice these things.
They're not stupid.
They can hear mom and dad getting upset, it upsets them.
They've made comments to like, mom, let's sell the bookshelf.
They've got little baseball cards, mom, I'll sell these.
And that hurts, because they're willing to sell their baseball cards to help their parents
out.
With her husband Tony out of work, Terry Newman began looking for ways to make money.
With $1,300 borrowed from her relative, she purchased beauty products that she tried to
resell door to door.
For someone with no sales experience, it was risky.
But for Terry, it made more sense than taking a full-time job.
You can't afford to work, you know, getting $6 an hour and expect to pay for child care,
you know, $1.50 an hour per child.
I have three children.
So I said, I'm going to have to find something else that I can do, and then when someone
introduced me to this business, I decided to say, hey, you know, that's worth my while.
I can make it, you know.
Look in the mirror and feel your face and say, well, you know, it's softer, it's the
complexion, the color, you know.
You talk to your friends, they always say, well, I'm going to do this this summer.
Well, how about you?
And you're like, well, I'm doing working.
That's all you can say right now is I'm working.
And they always ask me, why you work?
Why don't you go out and have fun like the rest of the kids do?
I say, oh, you can't, you just can't do it.
You have to go out there and help your mom and dad.
Fourteen-year-old Keith Stanley and his twin brothers, Claude Jr. and Claude Ayo, started
a business in 1991.
They called it the Three Sons Long Care Service.
How much money would you like to make when you grow up?
Probably about a hundred million, something like that, three hundred million, something
like that.
Do you think you will?
Yeah.
I see my mom on the phone talking to the bill collectors, asking them when they would take
the mortgage company, when they were about to take our house, she was pleading with the
mortgage company.
She asked the bill collectors to keep the light and sometimes the gas on.
That makes me want to do more, a lot more.
The Stanleys live in an African-American neighborhood traditionally supported by manufacturing jobs.
But as the jobs disappeared, housing values fell, and so did real estate commissions.
Jackie wanted to sell in other neighborhoods, but she ran into resistance.
It was on the market for a year and didn't sell.
It's because they didn't have someone as good as you.
People of color really have a much more difficult time in our business making a living than
white people.
There may be a situation where she may call for a showing and not get the courtesy of
a callback.
It may be her client that she takes into a mortgage lender has a much more difficult
time even if their credit is good getting a mortgage.
All right, fax it to me.
I can't sell suburbs, I can't sell the most affluent areas here, and that hurts.
But they'll call me for Central City.
Normally I make good meals, the meat and the vegetables and salads and all the fixings.
It's not a large amount, but they're good, well-balanced meals.
And now that I can't make well-balanced meals, I mean, it gets to the point where you sit
there and think, oh God, what am I going to make for dinner tonight?
You know?
And it's just emotionally exhausting.
It would be good, I guess.
Cheese.
Oh, well, but I have cheese, so would garlic bread, too.
You get the peanut butter and the honey, and this is the flour, and you do one pound of
butter.
Having to go and ask and say, I have no food in the house, can you help me out, makes me
feel very uncomfortable.
I'd rather be on the giving side than the receiving.
You want to pack up the commodities, I don't know if you're going to be using all of these
or not, Terry.
They have peanut butter, flour.
You can take what you like.
I do a lot of baking, and the kids eat a lot of peanut butter.
And we have some pork here.
I understand that if you put it over noodles or rice and maybe add a little onion, that's
great, palatable.
Come on, you lousy coward.
Come on and take your medicine.
Come on.
This is going to be your Waterloo.
Your Alamo.
Your surprise.
Just kidding, big guy.
Baby in the world.
What are you doing today?
I've been getting very angry lately.
I've been losing my temper quite a bit.
I don't know what it is.
And I tried to get it under control, but it's just really frustrating.
You got all of these pressures on you, and you don't have no way to release it, really.
How do you deal with this pressure, the anger?
I can't.
It's very difficult.
Yeah, our marriage is really on the rocks.
This is a really difficult time.
This is a real difficult time.
I've been thinking about a divorce now for a while.
Why?
I can't deal with the situation.
I'm just having a real hard time dealing with it.
So divorce is an easier way out?
Yeah, I think so.
I don't know what to do anymore.
I'm really at a loss.
You feel guilty?
Yeah, I do.
I feel I should be supporting my family.
You think he really wants a divorce, or is this just an escape?
I think it's an escape, and I just think he figures it's an easy way out.
But really, the problems are still going to be there, because he's still going to have
to support us, and I feel it's going to be worse.
I just feel it's just a tough time, and if we can just get through this, then we'll be
back to the life that we had before.
Good morning, everybody.
We gather on this Sunday morning in faith to praise our triune God.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
When we returned to Milwaukee in 1993, hope was in the air.
I, William Jefferson Clinton, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office
of President of the United States.
That I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States.
From the way he ran his campaign, it was more like he would concentrate on America.
The way he put it was that he wasn't going to send more jobs or factories out of the
country and bring more in.
I guess that in the next four years, maybe you might have openings, and maybe you might
not have to film as many people, and more people had jobs, and things probably will
work out.
I think this president, I think I can trust and relate to somehow.
Four more years, four more years, but you need to grow up a little bit.
Because for me, I've been there with Reagan, Bush, and now Clinton.
I'm not saying I don't trust presidents, is that you say a lot of stuff to get on top.
Even if I was running for something, I'd say, I'd be like, everybody get free candy and
everything, you know.
So you say a lot of stuff to get on top.
It all comes down to what you're going to do when you get on top.
To renew America, we must revitalize our democracy.
It's not so much up to just our president.
I would love to say it's the president, and that when he gets in office, my jobs will
be secure and all that, but I just don't feel it.
As much as I'd like to say it, his name is not G-O-D, it's Clinton.
And see the promise of America.
Americans deserve better, and in this city today there are people who want to do better.
Tony got a job, you know.
It was such a happy day you would not believe.
I mean, we were like, gee, if we had the money right now, we'd probably go and celebrate,
but we don't.
So it was a real exciting day, and it's like you want to get on the phone and say, oh my
god, Tony got a job.
Oh, Tony got a job, you know.
It was like winning the lottery, you know.
I mean, oh, he got a job.
After that, there was just a lot more tension just lifted off your shoulders.
I invited the Newman's around the Lord's table because a year ago they may not have had as
much to be thankful for, right?
You didn't have a steady job then, did you?
That's a fact.
That's a fact.
What is the fact today?
I have more than enough work.
More than enough work.
God is with us.
It's just a real relief to be working, I have a sense of worth.
It's a big relief to be able to know that I can support a family again.
It's a big load off my shoulders.
I'm still scared because of being laid off so many times.
Some people do call me money hungry because I eat up the overtime, but I've seen how
a couple months without income can do to you.
I won't feel safe enough until I have like 20,000 in the bank.
Tony's new job paid $10 an hour working the night shift in a small non-union factory.
Still months behind on the mortgage, he was working an exhausting amount of overtime to
try and catch up.
The kids are off to school at 8 o'clock in the morning so I can see them from 7 o'clock
when they get up until 8 o'clock when they leave.
And then I don't get home until 12 o'clock at night and they're already in bed sleeping.
It does bother me not to be able to see the kids as much as I used to.
It does bother me a lot.
But at this point in time right now, having money coming in consistently is more important
than spending time with my children all the time like I used to.
Can you make sure Daniel reads that book on the chemistry stuff real good?
Terry and Tony's marriage survived, but there were still pressures.
Tony's job offered limited potential and his health plan paid only part of his medical
expenses.
Plus, his long hours put a strain on the family.
Come on, let's pray.
Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on.
We are missing somebody.
We're missing Tony.
So a lot of times we're here by ourselves and it gets kind of lonely because we have
to do things just with the four of us.
And sometimes I feel like a single parent.
Father and Son and the Holy Spirit, amen.
Bless us O Lord in these gifts which are about to be received from the bottom-toothed Christ,
our Lord, amen.
Father and Son and the Holy Spirit, amen.
This is the hand that Dan got from work.
My Christmas time.
Terry still found herself having to choose between making money and staying home with
the kids.
The choice for now was to bring in some extra income.
Selling beauty products had wound up costing her money, so she took part-time work caring
for an elderly woman.
She left the kids with a relative.
In 1993, Claude Sr. was still waterproofing basements.
I do my best.
If I'm going to come out here and do a job, I'm going to make sure it's done right.
I don't care who work with me, we're going to do it right if I be here at half the night
to get it done.
He was now earning about $7 an hour, 50 cents more than in 91.
Now I'm putting the long hours in.
You're getting money, but it's not that much, but you're getting long hours.
But you know, you get home, you're tired, you know, we're tired, you know.
And you said, what's the use?
You know, why keep struggling?
Why keep going?
But you got to say, I'm going to make it.
I'm going to make it.
But the door got to open up somewhere, it's got to open up somewhere.
In 1993, the three sons were still in business, Keith Stanley, now 16, and the 14-year-old
twins, Claude L. and Claude Jr.
We do a lot of off-hand jobs, odd jobs like doing this and painting rooms and pulling
up carpet, taking out the furniture and stuff like that.
Most of the money goes to the bank, and if it doesn't, either we're helping our sister
out in college or we're helping out buying our own shoes, buying our equipment.
So it doesn't just get spent on whatever you want.
Keith had set a goal, to become the first boy on either side of the family to graduate
high school and go on to college.
I try to instill in them, it's going to need to get education.
You got to go to college.
Without a college education, you won't make it.
Daniel?
Daniel!
Daniel, look for your homework.
And your backpack.
With me working and Tony working, we had different shifts and we weren't all together all the
time at the same time.
How can he lose a backpack?
Daniel started getting very quiet and kept to himself a lot and his attitude just changed
a little bit.
You know, he got really distant.
Hey, look at this.
Homework, not finished.
Why?
Look at this.
Daniel started having problems with his grades in school.
There's three pages here.
I'm not signing none of this.
Let me see that.
Some kids almost blame themselves for what's going on in a family, you know, and that they
have to realize this is a situation, it's a tough situation for the whole family.
Everybody's doing the best they can.
You love him, you're there for him and you'll always be there for him.
Danny Newman.
A lot of our children here at school are getting themselves up in the morning, coming home
to an empty house at night.
Ideally we would have a parent there to get a kid off and someone there to receive them
when they come home at night, but that's, you know, in the fairy land world I guess
and we do what we have to do to survive.
Because of Daniel's problems at school, Terry quit her job.
She wanted to be home for the kid.
I'll tell you what we'll do.
I'll tell you what, I'll give you this one because that's the very same house.
Are you planning on going to keep the hedges on there?
Our family would be what you would say is what the average Americans are going through.
We get hard times and with my kind of work that I do, which is real estate, I'm a commission,
I get paid on commission, it goes up and down and it's rough.
Don't go in the back hallway, the dog's in.
Like yesterday I thought I'd have 2,000, by the time it was over with I barely walked
out with 1,500 and then you haven't thought of taking your taxes out either.
But see again, look who you're talking to.
You're talking to Jacqueline Stanley and it's not like you're talking to a little child.
I've seen hard times and I'm trying to go with the flow I guess.
And there's something that I always say, and I know you may not understand this, but
it says, so a man thinks so is he.
If I think poverty all the time I'll act that way.
I can't afford to talk negative and then allow my children to see me that way, down or depressed.
Jackie Stanley persevered at selling real estate, but it seemed her neighborhood was
coming apart at the seams.
Even on this street one block west of my house, just about every door here has the steel doors
here.
I have a six-foot fence.
There was kill you written on the back of my fence.
If you don't join the gangs, to my oldest son, Pete.
Just blocks away from her house, Jackie's uncle was murdered by an intruder.
All I can tell them is keep trying.
Every day I have to encourage myself and I have to encourage them.
Many times Keith has said to me, what's the use mom?
He did a 3.5, what does it matter?
And I said, you got to keep going.
Someone called us the other day when the snow was heavy and we were out shoveling snow and
someone stood at the window and said, look at your family, it's perfect.
And they called us the Beaver family.
I know they meant to say cleaver, and I said, we see you together all the time, it looks
good, but it looks good.
But no matter how it looks on the outside, I'm concerned.
After their layoffs, the Stanley's had switched their kids to public school, but Jackie worried
about them.
And one day a phone call confirmed her fears.
They had called me that Claudel was going on life support because the child choked my
son until he stopped breathing.
He came from behind me and started choking me and had me in some wrestling hold and so
I couldn't breathe.
And so I dropped to the ground and last thing I remember was teachers coming and praying.
By the time I had gotten there, they had his chest exposed and they were telling me that
Dale was now, had stopped breathing, that's all they could tell me, they said they can't
revive Claudel.
And when I got there, I saw the teacher on her knees praying, Hail Mary, full of grace
over my son.
All I could say was, Dale, remember Jesus.
You know, you hear about violence, you don't think it's going to hit your kids, you know,
and you find out your kids getting choked at school and near death, you know, and you're
on your job and you get a phone call saying come quick, your kid is on his way to the
hospital and you, you know, it's like right on your front doorstep now.
I think it's really not the school in general.
It's not the school board, it's not the Milwaukee Public School.
It's each child.
If each child made it in their mind that I'm going to come to school and learn today, I'm
going to get the grades, I'm going to be the next Bill Clinton, I'm going to be the next
Thurgood Marshall.
If they would do that, then I would think that we would not have the problems with inner
city school because it's not the location, it's the child, it's the parents, it's the
person, the upbringing.
What happens to a lot of people, you get whooped by society, society will tear you down because
you come in there with all these dreams and you're going to do it, you're young.
By the time you hit 30 and 40 years old, you don't lose several jobs, you know, your family
is getting divorced and stuff and you give up and you get tired and I think we need more
hope and by getting more hope we need more jobs and more good examples of people making
in life.
Having given up on her job, Terri was home with the kids, encouraging them and helping
with homework.
Ace, C's, C's, well you went up in math, you had a U, you went to a C.
I wasn't sure if it was the right decision but I thought it's either that or my kids
are just going to be having a worse problem.
Wow.
I'm proud of your efforts, Dan, I know you could do it, keep up the good work.
Good job, Dan.
Daniel I've noticed has really improved and he's gotten all of his assignments done.
I think a lot of it has to do with you being home when he gets there now.
Julie mentioned what kind of plants she wanted, tomatoes.
Yeah, she wanted tomatoes.
It helps out as far as a lot of the stuff that you grow you can eat and just helps save
money a little bit.
And it's from my mom and dad and grandma and all of these people who grew up during
their depression and figured hey, seeds don't cost a whole lot.
You can learn a lot by talking to some of these older adults as far as what they had
to go through.
It makes it seem like you don't have it that bad.
Tony continued working lots of overtime, then he got sick and lost ten days pay.
He caught pneumonia and he collapsed.
Yeah, they put me on an IV for about an hour and a half or so and they had to rest and
that was that.
And you just take off of work?
Yeah, they told me I should be off of work for about a week and a half from dehydration
and they said that was caused by stress.
And you get the bill and it's like $300 and something dollars and I said just for a taxi
service to the hospital, I'm like come on.
And Tony's like oh god, there's another bill.
Tony's new medical expenses hit them hard.
They were still paying off the debts from when he was unemployed.
Just with the mortgage we got well three months behind and it will take us two years to get
to pay that back because they tack on the interest and penalty charges and whatever
else.
You know, so that three months takes two years, that's a long time.
So whatever extra money we have we send it.
Only because we want to make sure that in the next year we have it paid off so they
don't take the house.
Okay, let's get these numbers down, see what we've got here.
Looks like you've got a medical deduction there.
In April 1993, the Newman's were proud that Tony was reporting income for the first time
in two years.
Uh oh, you don't have enough taxes paid in.
You're on $900.
$900, where am I going to get $900?
We think about our retirement, we think about the kids' education, we really think about
a lot of things, but right now it's just like opening up one of those mail catalogs and
wishing you know, the wish book.
But it will come true someday, hopefully.
When we returned to Milwaukee in 1995, Keith Stanley was one step closer to his goal of
attending college.
When you're raising them, you don't have time to watch them grow up.
You have time to feed them, clothe them and wipe their nose and see that nobody's beating
the heck out of them out here on the street, and you don't watch until suddenly this day
hits me dead in the face, and I knew he was graduating, I knew he was in the 12th grade,
but I didn't know, you know.
Today is like an end of an era, like when Michael Jordan retired, end of an era.
It's like a time where it's the three of us and he's moving on to college and going on
to bigger, better things, and I guess we're here just to pick up the slack and try to
do what we can, try to follow him behind him and look at him as a role model, and you know,
if they say we don't have too many role models, we can use him as a role model, our older
brother.
It makes me very happy.
I haven't talked to him for years, I can't talk to him.
He's the first one.
It's gonna be so many memories when he walks across that stage today.
Keith Kenyatta Stanley, that's my boy, that's my son, Jackie Stanley's son.
May each of you enjoy the riches of a full life and achieve success in your chosen fields
of endeavor.
I'm kind of nervous and kind of excited, but I'm ready to go on and move on now because
it's like been a long four years at a high school.
I'm hoping that after I graduate I really, you know, stay in college because I know a
lot of times people, they go out there expecting high hopes and like the world let them down.
I want to really go out there and make some noise in the world.
That's what I want to do.
In the spring of 95, Tony Newman finally moved on to the day shift.
Now he and Terry were able to spend more time with the kids.
They're doing great, they're healthy, they're doing well in school, and they're getting
big.
They're growing.
They're just huge.
They're growing out of shoes and pants and clothes.
Tony was now making around $13 an hour, still less than he had made at Briggs and Stratton.
The Newman's had managed to catch up on their mortgage, but they had no savings and still
lived paycheck to paycheck.
Why would I be waiting?
Morning, Barb.
Terry's latest part-time job was at a school cafeteria.
Paying $6.91 an hour, it let her get home before the kid.
I only work three hours so I don't get any benefits right now.
I might get extra time if somebody's sick.
Any extra time that I can get, I grab, because it helps.
In a typical day, Terry took home less than $20 after taxes.
Oh, I have to go by my dad's house.
He went on vacation for three weeks, and I have to go check out the house.
Hey, Jackie.
Hi.
Good to see you.
Wanted me to scream.
Thank you.
Good to see you.
This is new.
Yeah.
What's going on?
We put the house up on the market, and it was after we took Keith to school that a lot
of things have been going on, so we just said the neighborhood's changing, and we right
now feel that we should sell the house.
Every year, it's getting worse, gangs are moving in.
We're right here.
I have $2,800 worth of steel up to my house.
Yeah, I saw the steel doors, protected by the alarm system, beware of the dogs.
We have it all, and I was going to make up a sign, ignore the dog, ignore the alarm,
and you're going to make the 6 o'clock news.
I've had it.
I have had it.
Where will you go, though?
Claude and I have no idea where we're going to go.
If we get the price for our house, we'll take it and we'll run, but where, I don't know.
This is what I'm going to take to our son.
Pick up in deliveries.
Must have CDR, competitive wages, and excellent benefits.
And that's what we need, benefits.
Apply in person.
I studied and took a test at the motor vehicle department and got a CDL license.
And CDL license stands for commercial driver's license.
I am a Class B, C, which means I can drive dump trucks, straight trucks, with air brakes.
I'm hoping to get into a pretty good company that's going to offer me eight hours a day
and give me some decent benefits, like medical, dental, and eye exam.
I remember you telling us a couple of years ago, you thought it was so important that
as a mother, you were home with the kids, and Daniel was having a few difficulties
then, approaching teenage years, and you just felt it was best if you could be here.
I still feel that way, but under the circumstances, we're put into a situation.
We don't have a choice.
You know, we have to sacrifice.
Either we can't make the ends meet, you know, or we stay home with the kids.
Knowing he wouldn't make the living he needed at his present job, Tony had been retraining
again.
What are you doing outside?
I was waiting for you.
I'm always learning.
You always have to learn.
When you stop learning, then you've got a problem.
You've got to do that in order to stay in the job market, too.
The more you know, the better off you are.
The honors program, congratulations on your outstanding performance on the asset.
Tony got near-perfect scores, this time in thermoplastic molding.
Now he was up for a new job.
I went and got an interview, and I'm waiting to hear sometime by the end of the month if
I have the job or not.
And that doesn't make you happy?
It makes me happy, because it's really what he wanted.
I told him he had to make the decision, if he felt that that's what he wanted, to go
ahead and do it.
But?
It's a cut in pay rate.
It's a cut in pay.
They do have good benefits.
How much do you lose if you take it?
Oh, probably about two and a half, three dollars an hour.
But the thing is, four years down the road, I'll be making more money than I would ever
dream of making here.
What is it going to be there when it gets out?
You know what I mean?
They promise you that it's going to be there.
Just four years, they're going to stick you through school, they're going to train you
on the job for four years.
Now that is going to cost them a lot of money to put you through school and train you.
And why would they do all of that and want to kick you out?
If they do kick me out after the four years, I would have a journeyman's card.
And you can go pretty much anywhere once you get a journeyman's card.
I know, I don't want to burst your bubble.
Okay.
But what happens if they can't compete with a neighbor?
As you say, it's happened twice to Tony.
Right.
So I'm really reluctant.
I mean, I'm happy for him because he's excited about this job, but I'm still, you know, a
company can just, I mean, I've seen it, it can just pick up and move.
Hey, what's up, everybody, this is Keith.
I'm inside my dorm room, just trying to let you know how everything is doing.
In September of 1995, Keith started at Alabama State University.
I'm taking each step at a time, it's kind of harder than I thought, but I can do it.
How do you afford to keep Keith in college?
I negotiated two transactions and closed them the day before he left.
And you're talking about a prayer.
Jackie's commissions paid for only part of the first semester.
What does it take you a year down there from him?
It's $7,000 a year.
Is he going to be able to make it this year?
I just received a letter that I have to pay $1,300 now or Keith will have to be put out
in $48.
But again, God came through again, Keith had applied for a lot of charge cards before he
left.
Keith?
Hi.
How you doing?
All right, listen.
We came up with something.
Oh, that's so sweet.
I could tell you've been down south a long time.
You're saying yes, ma'am.
Your Discover card came in and we were concerned about this letter that came from your school.
So here's what we're going to do.
I called the Discover card people and I told them we wanted a cash advance.
Most people when they pray expect God to give them a miracle.
What you got was a $1,000 credit with 18% interest rate.
But it'll tie me over until I can get the miracle.
So then this semester is taken care of.
You hear me?
All right, I love you.
It's called Rob Peter to pay Paul and I'm robbing Peter so much that Peter is just standing
there.
But Bill, when you're going from trying to figure out what to eat today, should I fill
my tank all the way up, it's just got to happen.
I can't afford to worry about anything but what I'm taking care of.
I have a sign as you come in.
It looks like a biblical, a Bible, and it says, as for me and my house, that's all I'm
worried about.
And I know that's the 90s mood and I don't want to have that, but as for me and my house,
I can't worry what the president's doing, I can't worry about what my neighbors are
doing, or the economy, it's only just us.
As 1995 draws to a close, the Stanleys and Newmans continue to try and make ends meet.
Terry has taken a full-time job as an armored car driver.
Working pay is $7.50 an hour, plus the crucial medical benefits that Tony's job lacks.
I get a lot of looks from a lot of truck drivers, a lot of double takes that, wow, look at that.
I love it.
I think it's great, you know.
Working?
Working, yeah, and having the power behind the big truck, you know, I like it.
The power behind the big truck.
Yeah, I get a lot more looks than sitting in the kitchen cooking muffins.
Tony didn't get the job he retrained for.
He's continuing at his old one.
Together, Tony and Terry now earn more than Tony did before his layoff, but the Newman
kids come home alone.
The Stanley twins have taken fast food jobs.
The money they earn goes to help Keith in college, but they have goals of their own.
I plan to go to medical school and succeed in life, and I still haven't left that dream
of making $300 million, something like that, where I used to say I still haven't lost that.
I plan to be an architectural engineer, be the next Frank Lloyd Wright, grow up and have
a nice family.
That's my long term goal, retire, play a little golf, that's about it.
Claude Sr. is still on the job waterproofing basements.
Do you think you'll ever retire?
Ooh.
The way it looks now, I don't think so.
I might have to keep on working.
Meanwhile, Briggs and Stratton is in the process of eliminating 2,000 more jobs in Milwaukee,
and for working people all over America, real wages continue to decline.
And now for some of your comments about our program, Who's Afraid of Rupert Murdoch.
Dear Frontline, I'm a 15-year-old kid who by chance was reading George Orwell's 1984
when I flashed on his show about Rupert Murdoch.
It seems to me that for a person who is supposed to be against the establishment, he sure does
have a lot of control over what people hear and think.
This is the kind of person Orwell feared.
Scott Spradlin, Oklahoma.
Dear Frontline, you'll tell it like it is if Murdoch failed, as it was way too deferential
to Murdoch.
Murdoch equals garbage TV and garbage newspapers, yet you made him out to be this icon he is
not.
Lately, your programs are too middle of the road.
Paul Cooney, Tulare, California.
Dear Frontline, your recent documentary on Rupert Murdoch is indicative of the media's
continuing bias against successful business leaders.
Rupert Murdoch should be commended for his achievements in spite of bureaucratic roadblocks,
the anti-business regulatory environment, and media misinformation.
Rick Griffin, Seattle, Washington.
Dear Frontline, there is nothing new about using undraped women to sell newspapers or
anything else.
What is of greater concern to me is the reliability of the media in reporting and following up
on stories that embarrass their corporate patrons.
Entertainers like Rupert Murdoch are not the major problem.
Alvin Hofer, Gainesville, Florida.
Dear Frontline, why should journalism not be entertainment?
In a free society, the reader can decide what he believes, trash or truth.
If folks aren't free to print trash, assuming that's what he's done, then they're not
free to print truth either.
Debbie Berg, Northbrook, Illinois.
Why don't you talk back to Frontline?
By fax at 617-254-0243.
By email, frontline at pbs.org.
By home video or letter to this address.
And there's something that I always say, and I know you may not understand this, but it
says, so a man thinketh, so is he.
If I think poverty all the time, I'll act that way.
I can't afford to talk negative and then allow my children to see me that way.
I can't afford to talk negative and then allow my children to see me that way.
Funding for Frontline is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Funded by annual financial support from viewers like you.
Frontline is produced for the Documentary Consortium by WGBH Boston, which is solely
responsible for its content.
Additional funding is provided by Mutual of America, building America's future through
pension and retirement programs, encouraging dialogue and discussion.
The Spirit of America, Mutual of America.
For videocassette information about this program, please call this toll-free number, 1-800-328-PBS-1.
This is PBS.